


Acquired Tastes

by threewalls



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Children, Drabble Sequence, Engagement, F/M, Growing Up, M/M, Marriage, Murder, Prostitution, Snuff, Wakes & Funerals, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2007-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things no amount of training can prepare one for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written with thanks to lynndyre for beta.

Lest he waste the period between the day's lessons and the night's instruction, Oriya is allowed a single school friend to assist him with his homework. However, the afternoons stretched out on tatami mats with open textbooks and never-empty teacups are more than what his prospective friends realise.

Only boys from certain families qualify: one is never too young to form connections, Oriya's father tells him, when afterwards they discuss which maid drew his companion's eyes, whether further visits are necessary to cement that preference.

Oriya holds as a point of pride that, every month, he makes a new 'friend'.

\---

One afternoon, a stranger is waiting for Oriya, the son of the late Muraki-sensei (whose patronage is still vivid in the house's collective memory) visiting unexpectedly from Tokyo.

He flirts charmingly (but unfortunately, somewhat distantly) with every maid that services the study-room, young and old, slim and plump, short and tall: certainly _their_ favourite even if no one can divine his.

With his father's permission, Oriya hints at the more esoteric delicacies the restaurant provides. Muraki meets him hint for whispered secret, a playful wickedness in his smile that Oriya longs to taste.

He never envied the maids before this.

\---

With a guest of his own, Oriya is exempt from the evening's business. He leads Muraki through the restaurant's secret passages; they take turns at each peep-hole.

Later, Oriya feigns sleep. From the other futon, his friend's breathing, once steady, becomes curiously soft. Muraki holds his breath when Oriya rolls onto his side, but begins again, the slimmest explanatory shiver of his fist moving under blanket.

Then, Muraki's eyes open like a cat's, catching him.

"What are you thinking about?" Oriya asks, his own fist opening and closing, empty.

With a cat's grin to match, Muraki stretches, answering: "killing Saki."


	2. Chapter 2

The room beyond this peephole is soundproofed, a courtesy to the client within: the illusion of privacy. On the other side, a man has bought not merely an evening's entertainment in the woman with him, but her life.

Oriya is breaking all three rules about service he inherited from his father: never without payment, never involving the family--

No matter how much an honoured client pays, service like this requires advance notice and much preparation, long enough for a carefully worded letter to reach Germany.

Muraki doesn't share the peephole, but everything Oriya wants to see is on this side.

\---

Muraki sends yellow roses on Oriya's engagement; he allows Oriya to host a banquet on the occasion of his own.

From her wonder at his hostesses' costumes to her extravagant demands of her fiancé, Ukyou's child-like ways trouble Oriya. Though now professionally established, Muraki has sampled only the tamest items on the restaurant's menu.

Shortly after his honeymoon, Oriya receives an envelope of newspaper clippings-- several years' worth, some in German-- each one a murder tragic in an almost literary sense, if one ignored that the victims were mothers instead of maidens.

When Naoko falls pregnant, Muraki sends roses, again.

\---

Naoko dies; his son lives.

Appropriate to the nightmare, it's Muraki who tells him-- hands washed of blood, a mockery of Oriya's attempts to love his wife. Oriya's accusations are professionally indiscreet, and violent. Afterwards, Muraki (takes him into his mouth,) puts him to bed.

The hospital's bill includes the private room he, not Naoko, slept in, but not Muraki, the helicopter that ferried him from and to Tokyo, nor the articles Oriya broke.

Muraki's white lilies disappear amongst the others at the wake, but his business card burns in Oriya's hand; Muraki moves too carefully.

 _If anything you need._


	3. Chapter 3

Muraki buys another apartment in Kyoto. He says Oriya's staff are all gossips, which is true, but Oriya is equally thankful. He usually walks the distance, the mindless rhythm helping him separate his two lives.

They arrange their trysts via an elaborate code. Oriya feels half his age, younger, giddy whenever another note arrives, sprinkled with pre-arranged spelling errors. They make love in the noon sunlight streaming through windows that should make him feel exposed.

Muraki never orgasms, sometimes doesn't even stiffen. Oriya only asks once. Muraki's answering grin stops his heart.

"You haven't forgotten what I like, have you?"

\---

Muraki stalks inside without switching on the lights. Outside, the heavens abruptly open, a rushing flood against the glass.

Lightning flashes, the darkness shrinking to splashes across Muraki's white suit and coat. He tears them, everything, off, his naked skin pristine and glowing.

In the thunder, Oriya stands and moves closer. He wasn't supposed to be here, but he'd missed-- Muraki turns, shock behind his glasses that dissolves so fast, and his cock is beautiful, erect, thick.

Someone says, "please."

They've never done it this way. Muraki pulls his hair. Oriya gags, but swallows. He pretends he cannot smell blood.

\---

Muraki traces the vein along the underside of Oriya's penis with a surgeon's steady fingers. "The dead can be made to live. I'm so close now."

Oriya sighs. "I won't let you kill me."

"I don't want to kill _you_."

He wants ten women, not whores, women with families, with friends-- pretty ones, but with no connections to each other. However much it costs, he will pay. "Bankrupting you would be like killing you."

Oriya pushes him off, and Muraki goes easily.

This is just business, Oriya thinks in the shower, if one can do business with someone one loves.


End file.
